RIDGE MEADOWS
CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE

Type:

Individual Project

Role:

Wireframing, Prototyping, UX/UI Designer

Tools:

GrowthZone, Figma

Duration:

6 Months

When I was brought on board the Ridge Meadows Chamber of Commerce, the CEO looked resigned to a fate of having an eternally substandard looking and functioning website. The staff's woes came from GrowthZone, the website's editor that had to be used with the chamber's backend software. It was archaic by modern design software standards and left them grinding their teeth. Her branding team had spent the better part of a decade wrestling with this strange editor leading to an eye sore riddled with bugs.

After gulping down a lump of anxiety, I rolled up my sleeves and looked under the hood to see what I was working with.

Website

Yikes...

I could immediately see the problems upon opening the website. The navbar was bloated, the design language was inconsistent, and each element was arguing for control. Handling GrowthZone looked like a tough order.

Wrangling the Navbar

When I started fiddling with GrowthZone, it was obvious where all the frusteration came from. The program would delete every change you made unless you took the time to save every minor interface adjustment. This on its own is tedius, but the method for saving files was hampered by the fact that the save button was burried under a deluge of menus that you had to exit the editor to access. Still, after a solid month of hair pulling I had an improved navbar to show for the hastle.

Full Redesign

It wasn't smoothe sailing after I figured out the navbar, but I had learned just enough to design some disctint visual features for the website. A bevelled edge on each rectangle made it look comfy. I used the font helvetica as it is quite ubiquitous in government websites. It took 5 months of duking it out with GrowthZone before the having a website the CEO was happy with. Even though, they weren't blown away by my design, they were happy enough with the website to proudly stamp a seal of approval on it.

The Chamber's Map

The next project the CEO gave me made me giddy. The Chamber was creating a map of all the businesses in the local area. She wanted me to design the interactions on the map. I got to work immediately and had a low-fidelity prototype in front of them by the end of a weekend. I proposed a basic hover interaction to demonstrate how the user could view info on various the businesses.

The CEO rejected my idea. She clarified that she wanted to emphasize the business that had partnered with Ridge Meadows Chamber of Commerce. To this end, I added a clicking interaction that would highlight the location cursors on the map. The chamber would have a golden highlight distinguishing it from the rest of the cursors. In addition, registered businesses would have an emblem under them, marking them as a partner of the chamber.

Reflection

The high-fidelity prototype practically made itself. The CEO along with the whole chamber were elated to have worked with me. My work had made their website more presentable to the public. After my contract ended, the CEO of the chamber asked me to stay on board as a freelance designer. They have more projects in the pipeline for me soon. I was humbled by how much my work has been appreciated by the Ridge Meadows Chamber of Commerce and look forward to working for them again.